The elusive giant willow aphid goes into hiding in spring. Now the Royal Horticultural Society wants volunteers to help find out why
Gardeners have been urged by scientists to help find a mysterious bug which disappears in spring and reappears at the end of summer.
The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) is asking people to send in sightings of the giant willow aphid (Tuberolachnus salignus) so that they can find out where it goes and how it interacts with garden plants.
Continue reading...Agricultural businesses risk closure as figures show government paid only tiny fraction of slashed EU farming subsidies
Cuts to post-Brexit farming payments mean farms risk “going out of business” as new figures reveal only a tiny fraction of slashed EU subsidies went to agriculture businesses last year.
The government is replacing the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which paid subsidies to farmers to keep them in business, with “payments for public goods”, meaning land managers get paid for improving nature.
Continue reading...At least 24,596 people have been confirmed dead after the 7.8-magnitude quake struck on Monday
The death toll from the earthquake in Turkey and Syria is likely to “more than double”, according to a United Nations emergency relief coordinator.
Martin Griffiths, speaking to Sky News on Saturday, said he expected tens of thousands more deaths.
Continue reading...Oxford University-led study detects 26 types of PFAS compounds in ice around Svalbard, threatening downstream ecosystems
Norwegian Arctic ice is contaminated with alarming levels of toxic PFAS, and the chemicals may represent a major environmental stressor to the region’s wildlife, new research finds.
The Oxford University-led study’s measurements of ice around Svalbard, Norway, detected 26 types of PFAS compounds, and found when ice melts, the chemicals can move from glaciers into downstream ecosystems like Arctic fjords and tundra.
Continue reading...Secret international court system enables fossil fuel firms to sue governments for lost future profits
Experts have urged the UK to leave the controversial energy charter treaty (ECT), a secret court system that enables fossil fuel companies to sue governments for huge sums over policies that could affect future profits.
The European Commission said this week that remaining part of the treaty would “clearly undermine” climate targets and that an exit by EU countries appeared “inevitable”. Seven EU countries, including France, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands, have already said they will quit the ECT.
Continue reading...Invasive species proliferating in Valais is encroaching on natural reserves and posing a biodiversity threat
The residents of the Swiss canton of Valais are used to seeing their mountainsides covered with snow in winter and edelweiss flowers in summer. But as global heating intensifies, they are increasingly finding an invasive species colonising the slopes: cacti.
Authorities say cactus species belonging to the genus Opuntia, or prickly pears, are proliferating in parts of Valais, encroaching on natural reserves and posing a biodiversity threat.
Continue reading...Special forces destroy aircraft and seize weapons in effort to protect largest Indigenous reserve from mining mafias
The Brazilian government has launched its campaign to drive tens of thousands of illegal miners from the country’s largest Indigenous reserve, with special-forces environmental operatives destroying aircraft and seizing weapons and boats during an operation deep in the Amazon’s Yanomami territory.
Members of Brazil’s environmental protection agency Ibama – with support from the Indigenous agency Funai and the newly created ministry for Indigenous peoples – launched the long-awaited operation on Monday, with troops establishing a base along the Uraricoera river. Wildcat tin ore and gold miners use the waterway – as well as dozens of illegal airstrips – to reach and supply their illegal outposts in Yanomami lands.
Continue reading...Climate campaigners hit out at Norwegian state-owned Equinor’s record £62bn profits as household bills rise
Britain’s biggest gas supplier, the Norwegian state-owned oil company Equinor, has been accused of “profiteering” from the energy crisis and higher household bills after posting record annual earnings of £62bn.
The oil and gas producer said on Wednesday that adjusted profits hit $15.1bn (£12.5bn) in the final three months of last year, bringing total annual profits to $74.9bn, the highest in its 51-year history.
Continue reading...David Nixon disobeyed judge’s order not to mention climate crisis as motivation during trial over road-blocking protest
An environmental activist has been jailed for eight weeks after disobeying a judge’s instruction not to mention the climate crisis as his motivation during his trial for taking part in a road-blocking protest.
David Nixon, 36, a care worker from Barnsley, was sentenced at Inner London crown court on Tuesday after admitting contempt of court the day before by using his closing address to begin telling a jury about his reasons for protesting.
Continue reading...Political and Indigenous leaders hope to replicate success of British Columbia’s Great Bear Rainforest conservation area
Nearly a decade ago, Canadian political leaders, environmental activists and Indigenous nations came together to shelter a sprawling 6.4 million-hectare area of trees, sea wolves, salmon and grizzly bears – a project that was named, with some branding acumen, the Great Bear Rainforest.
The plan has since been hailed as a triumph for protecting swathes of old-growth cedar and spruce and drawing global attention to an area of pristine forest the size of Ireland.
Continue reading...City’s most famous feline was euthanized last year after being hit by vehicle, but his legacy lives on with a highway wildlife crossing
On a sunny Saturday in Los Angeles, a packed outdoor crowd of 6,000 people at the Greek Theater cried, sang and swayed together as they bid adieu to one of the city’s most treasured residents: a mountain lion known as P-22.
In a city more synonymous with billboards than biodiversity, an ageing bachelor puma made tracks into people’s hearts. When he was euthanized at the end of 2022 after being hit by a car, it stung.
Continue reading...Lawyers for climate activist killed by police say charges send warning: ‘If you stand in our way, we will take you out of our way’
Lawyers for the family of a climate activist who was shot dead by police in Georgia last month have condemned officials’ attempts to brand his fellow protesters of Atlanta’s planned “Cop City” training facility as domestic terrorists.
Attorneys representing relatives of Manuel Esteban Paez Terán were speaking at a news conference Monday as a large number of officers, including heavily armed tactical teams, descended again on the site in Atlanta’s South River forest where the building of the $90m so-called Cop City is planned.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Environment minister calls for ex-president to be held to account as she prepares to tackle illegal gold miners
Former president Jair Bolsonaro should be investigated for genocide, Brazil’s environment minister, Marina Silva, has said, as she prepares an operation to drive illegal goldminers from the site of a humanitarian disaster on Indigenous land.
In the coming days, armed police and environmental protection agents will launch the first of a series of operations by plane and helicopter to expel thousands of miners, who proliferated in Brazil’s Yanomami Indigenous territory during Bolsonaro’s administration, contaminating Amazonian rivers, wrecking the rainforest and spawning Brazil’s worst health crisis in living memory.
Continue reading...Company rebuts claims by scientists that ‘uncontrolled and unscientific’ practices highlight dangers of going ahead with seabed mining
Video footage from a deep-sea mining test, showing sediment discharging into the ocean, has raised fresh questions about the largely untested nature of the industry, and the possible harms it could do to ecosystems as companies push to begin full-scale exploration of the ocean floor as early as this year.
The Metals Company (TMC), a Canadian mining firm that is one of the leading industry players, spent September to November of last year testing its underwater extraction vehicle in the Clarion Clipperton Fracture Zone, a section of the Pacific Ocean between Mexico and Hawaii.
Continue reading...Conditions in parts of South America up to 10C above average as US records its coldest ever temperature
Unrelenting and record-breaking heat is expected to continue across parts of South America this week. Temperatures are forecast to reach the mid-to-high 30s celsius for Chile, Argentina, and Paraguay, with maximum temperatures possibly hitting 40C across northern Argentina.
These temperatures are at least 5-10C above the climatological average, with the extreme heat expected to continue at least until the middle part of February.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Looming auction to earmark £1.5bn to put power generators on standby and keep the lights on
The billionaire West Ham United investor Daniel Křetínský and Swiss commodities giant Vitol are among bidders hoping to land hundreds of millions of pounds in subsidies to keep the lights on in Great Britain.
National Grid’s electricity system operator is preparing to announce successful bidders in a “capacity market” auction this month for 2026.
Continue reading...The private sector is not seen to be ready to act as the main buyer and the draft is cited as nearly identical to a Morrison-era proposal
An Albanese government environment plan to encourage companies to invest in nature merely expands a Coalition proposal under Scott Morrison and is at risk of failing due to a lack of business interest, experts say.
The federal government is consulting on legislation to establish a scheme to incentivise investment in nature restoration by creating tradable certificates for projects that protect and restore biodiversity.
Continue reading...Subsidence from the world’s biggest iron ore mine threatens to swallow up the Arctic town of Kiruna. But what does its relocation mean for the local Sami reindeer herders?
In the far north of Sweden, 125 miles above the Arctic Circle, sits the church of Kiruna, once voted the most beautiful old building in the country. The cosy terracotta-coloured church, with its fairytale rooftop points, is designed to resemble a hut of the indigenous Sami people. It opened in 1912, with almost no religious symbols, and is described by the vicar, Lena Tjärnberg, as “the living room of the community”. But if Kiruna church is to stay the same, it must go.
In 2026, the entire 600-tonne wooden building will be loaded on to trailers and moved to a new spot near the local graveyard. It’s just one large – and technically tricky – piece of a project to move Kiruna to a new home, three kilometres (1.9 miles) east of the old town. Billed as the world’s most radical relocation project, Kiruna is moving because subsidence from the local iron ore mine is threatening to swallow the town. Cracks have already appeared in the hospital; a school is no longer safe for its pupils.
Continue reading...Reforming the scheme would shrink the budget deficit and help Australia hit net zero emissions by 2050, the Grattan Institute says
The Albanese government has been urged to halve the $8bn a year in fuel tax credits it gives mining trucks, semi-trailers and other heavy vehicles, with a new report finding changes are crucial for budget repair and meeting emissions targets.
Fuel tax credits have been “gnawing away an ever-growing share of fuel tax revenue”, with only half of the current amount spent justified in economic or social terms, according to a Grattan Institute report released on Monday.
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Continue reading...Experts urge swimmers to be cautious as more sharks are in the local estuaries at this time of year
Marine experts have warned more sharks will be swimming in estuaries at this time of year after a 16-year-old girl was killed in an attack in Perth’s Swan River.
The girl, identified as Stella Berry, was pulled from the water on Saturday afternoon with critical injuries, understood to have been to her legs, but despite the efforts of paramedics she died at the scene.
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